Declare Independence from this Ill-Executed Sequel
Roland Emmerich's 1996 alien invasion disaster flick Independence Day is a B-movie with A-grade stars and action. The cast sells the film's cheesy lines and the Oscar-winning visual effects hold-up as immense and spectacular. Emmerich returns to perhaps his most famous film with Independence Day: Resurgence, a sequel that wishes it were a B-movie, let alone one worthy of its predecessor's continued adoration. Resurgence is for die hard fans of the original only, and even they will leave disappointed.
20 years after the War of '96, David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) heads the Earth Space Defense forces to protect and prepare the planet for any future alien attacks. When the crashed ships from the first invasion begin to turn on, and the imprisoned aliens awake from their comatose state, the people of Earth rush to understand just what this new threat entails.
In the midst of all the commotion are former President Thomas Whitmore (Bill Pullman), his daughter Patricia (Maika Monroe), pilot Dylan Hiller (Jessie T. Usher, playing Will Smith's son), David's father Julius (Judd Hirsch), Patricia's fiancé Jake (Liam Hemsworth), David's alien expert colleague Catherine (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and Area 51's Dr. Okun (Brent Spiner). The new faces—principally Monroe (replacing the original's Mae Whitman), Hemsworth, and Usher—make no real lasting impressions despite playing central roles in the story. Hemsworth and Usher are particularly poor substitutes for Will Smith, each failing to be more than bland replacements to fill his "relatable hotshot" shoes. Though Smith could not have saved this film alone, his charm is missing nonetheless.
The returning cast members, from Goldblum on down to a silent Robert Loggia (in his final onscreen appearance), are all welcome sights, and most of them bring at least a hint of the energy and charisma they demonstrated in the original film. Goldblum is always an interesting and watchable screen presence, though he's saddled with some terrible dialogue. Spiner is exactly as he was in the first film, cooky and excitable, though like Goldblum he isn't always given the best material to work with. Hirsch's very Jewish father is a lot less fun when not paired with David, leaving his kvetching to fall on less game ears than those of his quirky, quippy son.
On whole, Resurgence feels as though its makers took a rolling pin to the original and flattened it to smooth out anything unique or engaging. The screenplay, credited to five writers (including Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin, who wrote the original), is a mishmash of ideas and characters that constantly criss cross each other without ever intertwining into something cohesive. While the filmmakers introduce many interesting concepts at the film's outset—like what immediate fallout may have occurred from the events of Independence Day (including guerrilla warfare between African mercenaries and the aliens), how an Earth devastated by massive attacks would look 20 years on, and how the humans would have integrated alien technology into their own lives—these ideas are given little thought, and their result is allowing Earth to have a lot of spacecrafts and lasers in 2016.
Emmerich's use of those spaceships and lasers isn't inspiring either. One of the film's early set pieces involves the massive alien ship using its own gravity to pick up Asia and drop it on the UK*, and while it's definitely something new to see the Burj Khalifa plunge into the Thames upside down, the moment is treated as more matter of fact than the landmark destruction seen in 1996. Those explosions still make you gasp, these are conceptually interesting but not filmed in any awe-inspiring fashion.
Independence Day wasn't begging for a sequel, but the filmmakers found an intriguing way to frame the world in the wake of the first film's events. Unfortunately, the good ideas were just that, and are never fleshed out into a full story. Independence Day: Resurgence just isn't any fun, and that's the best word to use when describing its predecessor. Unless you're really curious as to what comes next for David Levinson and co., don't waste your time with this film (it ends on a cliffhanger anyway). In fact, watch this charming promotional video instead, it's the best thing to come out of Independence Day since 1996.
*I won't take credit for the joke that this is the ultimate Brexit because it's not mine, but it was funny to hear Nigel Farage (a leader in the Leave campaign) give a speech that sounds like an anti-European Union, conservative spin on Bill Pullman's speech from Independence Day on the day Resurgence was released.